THE ATLANTIC FEDERATION, PART 2
THE POLITICS AND THE LIFE

Federation Roll Call

"The most difficult aspect of the Federation is that we cannot destroy it in one blow. That opportunity has long since passed, and we cannot be sure if it will ever return."
- Komtur (regional governor) Ulrich Bourdais, State of the Zemgalan Order, EEIA, 1913 EC

The Federation is an intercontinental organization, dominating not only western Europa but almost all of North Vinland. When including its members' overseas possessions, the Federation maintains a foothold in almost every continent on Earth. Most members are full republics, while other members may still be monarchies albeit with extensive democratic reforms that set them apart from the EEIA and the League. While the members states listed will be given attention in subsequent chapters, a brief list includes the following as of 1943 EC:

Continental Wing

- Valois Republic
- Frisian Union
- Duchy of Burgon
- Nord Republic
- Arvorigan Republic
- Regional Council of Tarracon
- Republic of Massalie

Oceanic Wing

- United Kingdom of Edinburgh
- United States of Vinland
- Kingdom of Lusatia
- Commonwealth of Arcadia
- Republic of Riodoro

Quarantine Cordon

- Free State of Prutenia
- Alamanish Confederacy
- Free State of the Ofenrohr
- Mrivan Republic
- Viszevaric Commonwealth
- Republic of Karjala

The Federation relies primarily on Standard Europan for intra-alliance communications on account of the heavy influence of Standard Europan-speaking states such as Edinburgh and the USV. There is also the simple fact that the standard language of diplomacy overall in the world is Standard Europan, stemming from Europa being the primary center of power in global affairs and the language being widely spoken in the continent due to the great extent of both Valkyrur and Nordomme influence. Even so, Valoish remains a very popular language within Federate lands due to Valois's almost peerless level of contribution to modern Europan culture.


The Icons of the Federation

"It's hard to kill an idea, but giving it a good symbol makes it bloody bulletproof."
- Edinburgh anarchist Val Tyler, 1925 EC

The flag of the Atlantic Federation is mainly white, with two faded blue stripes crossing it horizontally near the top and bottom edges. According to the records of the committee that finalized the flag design for the entire alliance in 1874 EC, the white base of the flag represents the purity of the Federate cause and the blue stripes represent the hopes of continued stability and wisdom among all mankind. The records indicate that as the committee believed stability to provide the foundation for wisdom and wisdom in turn to provide the foundation for stability, which blue stripe represented which virtue did not matter. In many world maps produced in Europa and Vinland, as well as on the field of battle, light blue oftentimes represents the Federation and its member states with white occasionally used instead. Perhaps coincidentally, white and blue are found in almost every national flag under the aegis of the Federation.

The most notable symbol of the Federation is its eight-spoked Compass of Freedom. It is not entirely certain who came up with its design, but rumors persist that the Edinburgh delegation proposed the initial designs for the Compass based on its coincidental resemblance to some major religious iconography in the Bharatian subcontinent. Others note the curious similarity between the Compass's eight-spoke pattern and the similar eight-way cross found on Edinburgh's flag.

While every member state in the Federation has its own unique national flag, emblems, and other important symbols, Federate regulations insist that all military units and equipment bear the Federate flag and/or Compass alongside national insignia if not outright replace it. This is mainly done to more clearly identify friends from foes on the battlefield across a multitude of environments and weather conditions, especially since every side in the Great War made use of captured enemy equipment whenever possible. According to the Federation Combined War Ministry's logic, it is much easier to train Federate troops from Vinland to Burgon to identify one overarching set of Federate symbols than to train them to recognize roughly a dozen different ones.


The Federate Political System

"In our attempts to safeguard our sovereignty, we have sold our soul to another larger state. Is this what our forefathers anticipated or would have accepted?"
- Edinburgh Leader of the Opposition (later Prime Minister) Sir Isaac Evans, 1873 EC

The Federate Council provides overall leadership for the entire Atlantic Federation. Founded in 1873 EC to address the concerns over who exactly ran the Federation when it was cobbled together from multiple sovereign nations with their own objectives and necessities, the Federate Council operates on a rotating basis of power. Every six years, the assembled Councillors – each of whom represents one member state and is appointed by the head of state of said nation to serve terms of variable length – conduct an election among themselves to choose a new Head Councillor who cannot be the same one as previously or from the same country. This means that one year, the massive USV can nominally head the alliance but have the Tarraconese anarchists replace it in the next election as a means of giving each member state more incentives to stay and participate. The Federate Council officially possesses legal authority over all member states in order to empower the Federation to act as a coherent entity against the much more centralized EEIA and the more recent Europan Syndicate, but whether the member states listen is oftentimes another matter. Even simple resolutions can take weeks if not months to pass due to the national interests of all members.

The Federate Council is merely one half of the overall Federate administrative structure; the other half is the lower-level Federate General Assembly, also founded in 1873 EC. Curiously, the General Assembly shares the same model as the USV's lower House of Representatives, with every member state represented by a number of Assemblymen proportionate to the population of said member state compared to that of the entire Federation. Unlike Councillors, Assemblymen are elected directly by their countrymen. High-level Federate offices such as the Federation Combined Foreign Ministry and the Federation Combined War Ministry draw their new heads from General Assembly elections also every six years, albeit three years after the Council has its own election so that the entire Federation command doesn't face a turnover all at once. This also means that the first-ever Assemblymen to serve in the General Assembly had nine-year terms to account for this staggered schedule.

To better coordinate Federate actions in the international stage, the Federation utilizes combined ministries ("FC" Ministries) for various fields. The biggest ones are as follows:

Federation Combined Foreign Ministry

The Federation Combined Foreign Ministry takes seniority over all other FC Ministries due to its sheer importance in global affairs. Without the FC Foreign Ministry, the Federation is isolated and vulnerable to outside attacks. Drawing from the best personnel the various foreign services of the Federation's member states have to offer, the FC Foreign Ministry handles not only negotiations with other governments in the world but also disputes between the various Federate states as the first responder before the matter is escalated to the Council and General Assembly. In times of war, the FC Foreign Ministry possesses the legal authority to place the diplomatic corps of all member state governments under its command to prevent confusion in international communication and stop individual member states from independently reaching out to enemies to broker separate peace deals.

In January 1935 EC, the FC Foreign Ministry was dominated by the United Kingdom of Edinburgh. While Edinburgh kept its power within the ministry with the General Assembly elections of 1936 EC, its continued, disastrous mishandling of the Federation's relations with the strategically vital Principality of Gallia and the disappearance of Ambassador Jean Townshend off the coast of Gallia in Dec. 1937 EC forced snap elections early the following year. Having more or less lost their credibility in the diplomatic role by that point, the Edinburghers were swiftly removed and surprisingly replaced with the normally apolitical Arcadians to serve out the remainder of the term. Arcadia kept its position after the 1942 EC round of General Assembly elections and oversaw not only the radical restructuring of central Europa but also the establishment of the Federation's long-term approach to the Syndicate.

Federation Combined War Ministry

The Federation Combined War Ministry coordinates all Federate military operations and business. While the FC War Ministry is not in the business of micromanaging all of the member states' militaries as the Empire in its final days was prone to doing, it nevertheless reserves the authority to mandate certain actions and changes to strategy as the situation dictates. This ministry is also involved with military-related research and development efforts in the alliance, but it is known to not possess full authority in actually deploying all of their output.

At the start of the Great War, the Nord Republic held power in the FC War Ministry and borrowed Nord strategies refined by the Ulrikean approach to conflict in order to craft the Federation's short-term defensive and counteroffensive strategies. Under the Nord leadership in the FC War Ministry, the Federation devised two main operations. The first one was Operation Swordstaff, a comprehensive plan to organize partisans and stay-behind forces in areas deemed the most likely to fall to a strong initial Imperial offensive. Swordstaff's main objective was wearing down Imperial force concentrations and supply lines in Federate territory, and to divert the Reichsarmee's attention from the front. To facilitate this, several units of the Nord Army and the Tarraconese Popular Army were moved to southeastern Valois to help train local vetted volunteers on guerrilla tactics, and ended up themselves as part of the stay-behind campaign. Surprisingly, this operation was greenlit by the Federation with virtually little fuss.

The second operation was Operation Northern Cross, the infamous mass counteroffensive launched on March 3, 1935 EC. Utilizing Swordstaff's established guerrilla campaign to disrupt Imperial supply lines and assets, the FC War Ministry originally proposed to mass Edinburgh troops primarily in the Burgonian sector and push straight into northern Prutenia to overrun the Ofenrohr Valley yet again, while also diverting a contingent to drive south and trap any advance Imperial forces in southeastern Valois in a pocket to be systematically annihilated by the Valois defenders. After this first stage, the FC War Ministry proposed that the Federate forces hold their ground in occupied Ofenrohr and Prutenia to the northeast of Valois and focus mainly on the destruction of Imperial forces in southern Alamania in order to completely cut the Empire off from the Mediterranean and gift the Federation with more favorable defensive terrain.

However, this more ambitious offensive proposal immediately ran into difficulties mainly due to concerns over whether Federate forces would even be in position to carry this operation out as planned, especially due to the rapid rate of Imperial armor deployment. Other related concerns involved whether even a successful conclusion of Northern Cross as initially proposed would induce the Empire into even considering surrender or negotiations. While the loss of the Ofenrohr region and the Mediterranean ports would indeed bloody the noses of the Empire's industrialists, the Empire's eastern (and increasingly developed) reaches were much more difficult to directly threaten and thus helped the Imperials better avoid suffering the humiliation of asking for terms first. Regardless of this internal debate, the surprisingly early fall of the Nord Republic by February 1935 EC caught the FC War Ministry and the entire Federation in a panic and induced them to revise and hastily approve Northern Cross to become a direct assault on Schwartzgrad itself, mirroring Davoust's plans from more than a century prior. The end result would be a Pyrrhic victory that still forced the Nord Republic out of the War Ministry in favor of Valois in the 1936 EC round of General Assembly elections.

The FC War Ministry does its best to promote and implement equipment standardization, but it has always failed mainly due to national and factional pride. The USV and the Nord Republic, the rest of the Oceanic Wing, and the rest of the Continental Wing each have their own unique rifle ammunition (.30-06, .303 Edinburgh, and 8mm Tramond respectively), and virtually none of these three parties substantially integrate each others' war gear into their own militaries beyond mostly what was provided through Vinland's Arsenal Lease program. The FC War Ministry has even failed to convince these three parties to share the same uniforms beyond emergency situations (Oceanic troops typically wear brown/khaki tunics with green trousers, most Continental troops typically wear Valois "morning fog" bluish grey, Nord troops wear a darker grayish blue, and Tarraconese troops can't truly be described as having coherent uniforms in the first place), although it has to its credit succeeded in standardizing steel body armor plates used among the Federation's ground troops other than helmets.

Federation Combined Interior Ministry

Despite its name, the Federation Combined Interior Ministry handles intelligence work both within Federate territories and outside them. As the Federation's various nations came to realize that attempting to match the EEIA in military might alone was a fool's errand on account of Schwartzgrad's much greater industrial power closer to home, the democratic alliance emphasized in outsmarting it.

The FC Interior Ministry is functionally divided into two bureaus, even though Edinburgh has maintained control of the overall organization for the past half-century. The Bureau of Internal Security (BIS) focuses mainly on counterespionage, employing a large number of informants and agents to root out foreign spies, shut down domestic troublemakers, and secure any sensitive data that may have been unearthed by the aforementioned two. The BIS is also rumored to be responsible for supervising the various experimental R&D projects scattered throughout the Federation, and the relatively high number of Vinns in the BIS suggests these projects are mainly sent across the ocean to the USV to keep them safe from direct Imperial and PAC intrusions.

On the other hand, the Bureau of External Operations (BEO) focuses almost exclusively on conducting sensitive operations abroad, whether it be gathering critical military intelligence, stealing industrial secrets, or even conducting outright direct actions if necessary. The BEO is reputed to have its fingers in virtually every country other than those in the PAC; more than one surprise diplomatic announcement or coup d'etat have been attributed to the BEO, although these accusations have rarely been definitively proven. If nothing else, the BEO has a lopsided impact on the Federation's international reputation.

Federation Combined Economic Ministry

The Federation Combined Economic Ministry is not the largest of the FC Ministries but nevertheless serves the important function of coordinating intra-Federation trade and supervising trade deals with other powers. Curiously being constantly handed off between Valois and Lusatia over the past few decades, the FC Economic Ministry remains a quiet and inconspicuous branch of the overall Federate government. But without it, the Federation's superiority in trade would not be possible.

Human Rights and the Federation Combined Justice Ministry

The Federation officially demands a high level of adherence to human rights as outlined by the Federate Charter of 1799 EC. According to the original version of the Charter, fundamental human rights include the right to life as an individual being, the guarantee of equal treatment before the law no matter the social class, protection of property ownership, and the freedom of speech and thought. Later additions include a prohibition on slavery and ethnic discrimination, as well as (with the insistence of the USV) the right for all free citizens to bear arms. Internal violations of these described rights are investigated by the Federation Combined Justice Ministry, although the this FC Ministry in practice does not have the full powers needed to enforce all rulings. The USV controls the FC Justice Ministry, having held it before the Great War and winning the Great War-era elections by a slim margin.

Even with all of this official adherence to human rights and the theoretical wealth of resources at the FC Justice Ministry's disposal via its Vinnish heads, the Federation struggles with equal implementation of these rights. In particular, the Federation is saddled with accusations of human rights violations in its colonies; while the Empire of all states was the most frequent accuser, it wasn't necessarily wrong given the treatment of Nubian colonial subjects both native and Europan especially during the close of the 19th century EC. And while it should be mentioned that Darscens in the Federation are nowhere near as harshly treated as those in the Empire, they still face considerable social barriers due to the lasting stigma placed upon them for the alleged sins of their forefathers. Outside regular society, special operations and projects the Federation conducts can be absolutely riddled with questionable ethics and actions – with Council authorization, human rights can very well be demoted to mere suggestions in the name of advancing the cause of the Federation.


Federate Representatives, Extraordinary Actions

"The Federation is full of red tape, and it needs you to be the tape cutters. Don't get complacent and don't get fancy, you'll live longer."
- Attributed to Sir Jonathan Medway, suspected FREYA agent, unknown year

The Federate system inevitably creates deadlocks in many important areas such as military coordination and trade negotiations, oftentimes at the worst possible moments. As a safeguard of last resort to keep the gears of Federate administration turning, the special organization of Federate Representatives, Extraordinary Actions (FREYA) was established in 1874 EC with full Council backing.

FREYA only has one objective: to advance the goals of the Atlantic Federation no matter the cost, even if it means strong-arming the Federation itself. To this end, FREYA enjoys incredible powers and freedom of action courtesy of the Council to ensure the right people are paid, promoted, or removed and to take the initiative in areas in which the normal Federate political system finds it difficult to do so. Not even Councillors themselves are immune to FREYA interventions, although the organization declines to take such a drastic step unless the Federation's existence is truly at stake.

FREYA agents are authorized to commandeer or terminate virtually any asset in the Federation to aid their operations, being fully empowered to ignore national customs and laws if required. In addition, FREYA is rumored to carry out operations that are even beyond the capabilities of the Federation's individual national special forces units such as Edinburgh's S3 and Valois's Régiment de Voltigeurs. Because of this, FREYA looks specifically for men and women who are highly experienced combat veterans or possess other extremely valued skills such as cryptography to man its ranks. FREYA does not discriminate on race or nationality, although Darscens are oftentimes rejected for field work not because of their ethnicity but because Europa in general already holds them in suspicion and as such would make their operations more difficult to hide and conduct.

Whatever scant details are declassified and made public regarding FREYA also reveal a high level of cooperation between FREYA, the BIS, and the highest echelons of the FC War Ministry. The sheer extent to which this cooperation goes has only just been revealed to the world as of the time of this writing, and will be covered in its own section later in this book.


The Federate Economies

"Just do what you can with what you've got."
- Vinnish hunter and survivalist Barrett Grunder, 1896 EC

It was more or less an internationally accepted fact prior to the outbreak of the Great War that the Federation was in many ways still inferior to the Empire when it came to sheer industrial capabilities. While the participation of Vinland and its staggeringly powerful industrial sector undoubtedly helped balance out the EEIA's, the Imperials did not have to cross the Atlantic to get fresh war gear and other critical resources to the Europan front. Much of the Europan half of the Federation was still in somewhat dilapidated condition when Imperial troops stormed across the border in January 1935 EC.

Much of the Federation's Europan economy was and still is based on trade, not only with other sovereign states but also internally with colonies and autonomous dominions. However, much of the revenue from colonial trade was frequently invested improperly over the years – one of the most notorious and lasting examples was the Kingdom of Castria (made the western half of Valois decades before its Revolution) and its ludicrous expenditures on military upkeep, with virtually nothing for long-term domestic development. On top of this, the Federation's system of alliance governance and its general economic policy of laissez faire gave the bloc reduced powers to focus economic strength toward heavy industry and military buildup compared to the Empire. Great arsenals such as the Valois rifle plants of Saint-Élise and massive drydocks like those of Edinburgh exist and produce an admirable amount of hardware, but they were still not quite at the level of the East Europan conglomerates such as Zechmeister, Von Bismarck, and Krimm with extensive personal ties to Schwartzgrad's ruling class when the Great War finally erupted.

Another factor in the general lag in Federate industrial development at least in Europa is the simple fact that the Federation is not quite as well stocked with ragnite as are the former possessions of the EEIA. While Edinburgh possesses relatively large ragnite reserves and enjoys as a consequence a robust industrial sector, much of the Europan territories in the Federation are not as fortunate; the further west one goes in the Europan regions of the Federation, the less ragnite exists and the less industrialization is present. The USV did and still does export ragnite to most of its fellow Federates (at premium markups to the perpetual annoyance of the FC Economic Ministry), but much of the USV's resources are used for internal development. Currently, Federate scientists have expressed optimism regarding the Federation's North Sea and Crystal Sea ragnite survey projects conducted alongside the neutral Kingdom of Varangia and the newly resurrected Kingdom of Fhirald, but only time will tell if these projects will pay dividends.

The industrial power of the USV is as hinted before another matter entirely when it comes to the general inferiority of Federate industries against the old Empire's. While this and its causes will be explored in its own section further along in this book, the USV is almost entirely self-sufficient in strategic goods and beyond reach of virtually any enemy. Vinland began to spike in industrial power by the turn of the 20th century EC, economists estimating that the USV alone possessed a quarter of the entire world's industrial power at that point in time. Without Vinnish industrial might and the flood of Vinnish gear to augment the rest of the Federation, the alliance's efforts may very well have collapsed in Europa during the Great War.

Even so, the Federation still absolutely exceeds East Europa in other sectors of the economy. Food is almost never in short supply in Europa and Vinland (save for Edinburgh during the Great War and even now on account of it being an island state with almost 50 million inhabitants), and the Federation's extensive colonial system and naval domination mean that backup necessities are virtually always within reach. Federate colonies also produced goods during the Great War that the average Imperial citizen could only dream of accessing in wartime; chocolate in particular became a major cultural weapon in use in Federate-occupied Imperial lands to show Imperial subjects that even in times of total war, the Federation was more than able to still provide its fully mobilized men and women with certain peacetime luxuries.

As with virtually all of Europa, the nations of the Federation primarily use the ducat (DCT) as their currency. While the Federation has not yet come up with an alliance standard for currency design, each member state steadfastly maintaining its own national patterns for its money, all ducats are considered equal in the Federate and wider Europan market anyways. This has the benefit of vastly simplifying international trade for the Federation, but also the drawback of sharing inflationary issues with the Empire and the League.


The Redemptionist Church and its Western Variant

"Still haven't found any kid who didn't pray to God and the Redeemer while digging foxholes deeper under fire."
- Vinnish Continental Army Lt. David Summers, Ofenrohr Sector, 1938 EC

Virtually all of Europa and the parts of the world it colonized believe to some extent the divinity of the Valkyrur established in the wake of the Valkyrur Conquest. However, while the northern and eastern reaches of Europa follow the more "conventional" practices of the Yggdist Church, the Schisms of the medieval era brought about a very different interpretation of the faith in the west and south. Related to monotheistic religions from the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean such as those from Kemat and Nabatea, the Redemptionist faith worships not a whole race of divine warrior women but rather a single individual within this race piously proclaimed the Redeemer.

The basics of the Redemptionist faith diverge from those of Yggdism through the former's central belief that a single, almighty God created heaven and earth as well as all beings living on the latter. However, His will was corrupted by the Valkyrur whom He created to be His divine agents and the Darscens who came to dabble in forbidden practices and powers on Earth. The Valkyrur and the Darscens entered open conflict against each other, threatening to end all life on Earth and essentially trample on God's will. Therefore, God turned away from His creations even as the Valkyrur Conquest raged on and the Earth was completely reorganized according to the will of His former divine agents. Even still, God loved His creations and even the Valkyrur who turned from Him, and the suffering of His creations moved him to send His last child to purge the sins of both man and Valkyria. This agent would bring out the best from the hearts of those mortal and those supernatural, to help them see what was truly righteous in life – and she would do this by example.

This child of God was deemed the Redeemer, her name seemingly lost to time. Archaeological and other historical records suggest the Redeemer actually originated somewhere in the southern reaches of the Latin Peninsula shortly after the fall of the old Latin Imperium in the 3rd century EC. It is suggested that this woman participated in the Valkyrur's disastrous campaign against Kemat, after which she settled in the Kematian and Nabatean regions for some time. As the Redeemer was virtually the only one of her kind in that corner of the world, she supposedly created a new cult around herself while conducting countless good deeds such as defending communities from the lawless and aiding the ill during times of plague. As the pillars of the Redeptionist faith share commonalities with those of the Kematian Cult of Harwe and Nabatea's own highly resilient monotheistic religion, this "Sole Survivor Theory" has taken hold in many religious and academic circles.

While the power of Redemptionism is unable to truly break the chains of discrimination for the Darscens living in Western and Southern Europa, the sect on the whole officially considers Darscens free from the guilt of fighting the war that made God turn His back on the world for a time. As the Redeemer and her disciples conducted their good deeds around the eastern Mediterranean without consideration for class and ethnicity, so too have Redemptionist institutes conducted themselves in their services. The Church welcomes Darscens to join the ranks of its clergy, although this number is somewhat limited; instead, its relatively egalitarian influence on society can be better seen in the fact that unlike in the EEIA, Darscens in the Federation and the League are not formally reduced to second-class citizens or even serfs (even if discrimination does persist regardless). Unlike the Yggdist Church, the Redemptionists do not glorify violence and martial deeds even while not shying away from justified self-defense.

The Redemptionists have their own regional variations, the most important ones being the Western and the Latin variants with the latter seemingly drawing some inspiration from Latium and Ellas's old shared pantheon. The Western Redemptionist Church dominates the religious space in areas controlled by the Federation except for the Nord Republic (even if the Nords have adopted similar anti-discrimination policies toward Darscens), but the Second Schism's bitter struggle over the proper nature of religion in secular life and the Federation's official policies of separating the political world from the religious world have essentially locked it out of direct political power. Unlike with the League's Latin Redemptionists, Western Redemptionists do not have a singular high authority for ecclesiastical matters, with each national branch operating more or less independently while adhering to the same general tenets. Western Redemptionism does share the same saints as its Latin counterpart, however. As a result, Western Redemptionism is perhaps the most flexible and most prone to change out of all Valkyrur-derived religious sects.

Federate member states deal with the Western Redemptionist faith in various ways. Edinburgh officially has the king also act as the head of the Redemptionist Church of Alba, thereby giving the clergy in theory direct access to political power; in practice, however, the Church prefers to leave political matters to secular men. In other areas such as Valois and especially Tarracon, the Western Redemptionist Church is heavily encouraged to stay out of politics, oftentimes with formal suggestions but sometimes through violence. Finally, the Nord Republic as mentioned before is unique in the Federation that it does not follow Redemptionism at all, instead remaining a primarily Yggdist society albeit one that does not look down upon Darscens as would its more conventional brethren. As is the case with much of Europa to varying degrees, religious institutes in the Federation do not have immediate political influence and power as they used to in the olden days.